The last time director/producer Michael Bay got his hands on the subject of World War Two he created Pearl Harbor, a flick that while financially successful was critically panned and continues to be mocked even to this day (Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic, gave this movie a horrible beat-down only a few months ago)! Yet despite this history, Bay is considering returning to the subject with Paramount Pictures possibly backing him.
Bay is looking at producing and/or directing a movie detailing real life events based on author Neal Bascomb’s book proposal entitled Sabotage: A Genius Scientist, His Band of Young Commandos and the Mission to Kill Hitler’s Super Bomb, or Sabotage for short.
On the surface Bay seems a natural fit for the WWII sub-genre of war films as it is one of the few remaining places where over the top American chest thumping jingoism is still considered acceptable. The problem is that when one looks back on many of the great classic films set during this bloody conflict is that they are full of engaging characters that the audience can sympathize with and these kinds of characters are pretty much beyond Bay’s ability entirely. Bay’s few recent critical successes like Bad Boys II and Pain and Gain are full of interesting yet unlikable and outlandish characters that people cannot relate to on any deep level. Give the guy horrible people and the man can spin gold. Any time however, where Bay has attempted to create a truly relatable character for the audience to invest in, the whole exercise has ended in a horrible fiery mess. Look no further than his vile mangling of my beloved Transformers franchise for proof of this. The things that man has done to the good name of Optimus Prime and the Autobots can never be forgiven.
This property is even further proved to be a bad fit for Bay as the heroes of this story are Norwegian. Bay only understands how to make the American military look good, his “America, Fuck Yeah!” attitude isn’t going to work for, y’know, not Americans.
The best thing for this project is to be separated from Bay entirely. Neither he or anybody in his production company, Platinum Dunes have the chops to tackle this sort of movie.
What say you? Does the idea of a Michael Bay WWII flick make you stand at attention or do you think Hollywood deserves a Section 8 for even contemplating letting Bay near The Greatest Generation yet again? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
Via Screen Rant
